I’m more interested in what resistances, damage, etc, my gear can give me than being a fashion icon. 
i can be interested in both
I would much rather Crate not spend their limited time and resources on such nonsense, multiple armor looks and animations to develop …or new content…no thanks, its a no brainer for me, don’t fix what isn’t broken. If your friend isn’t playing because she feels her toon isn’t feminine enough,then she probably wasn’t going to play anyway.
Prior to the illusion system I would willingly equip subpar gear if it looked better than a superior alternative. 
IMHO, even if Crate gave players a lot of freedom to customize the facial features of your avatar (like Fallout 4) it will be for nothing once u don your first full face helmet unless the illusionist also gives the option to make the helmet transparent. Personally it would at best just be a selling point for Crate to hook new players that love nonsense like that into the game. For real ARPG players this feature is trivial & a waste of the developers resources. We are playing Grim Dawn because its a no nonsense game. Being able to choose between male & female at character creation is more than sufficient.
GD is a small team. Making gendered outfits means doubling the art necessary for gear, particularly chest-pieces. The probably have a million more important things in their backlog.